Making My Own Wardrobe

In 2022, I set a goal of making 50% of the clothes I wear. I didn’t make that goal, not even close. But, I loved getting back to apparel design and construction. I set that same goal for 2023 and I’m getting much closer. People are often curious about how and why I am doing this, especially given how affordable fast fashion makes clothes and how expensive apparel fabric can be. As a purely financial decision, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. So, I thought I’d explain a bit more about my reasons and what I’ve learned so far.

Reason #1: Resisting the Consumption Urge of Late Capitalism

Okay, so not everyone spends their work days thinking through the evils of capitalism, but as a sociologist I have spent a good deal of time thinking about how capitalism, mass production, and fast fashion has shaped my relationship to clothes (and everything else, really). Increasingly, I have been thinking about how to make my life more local, smaller in scale, smaller in impact. It’s not easy and, of course, people are quick to note that my fabric still has to come from somewhere that is not local, but that kind of totalizing thinking is what paralyzes us from making small changes that could affect our quality of life and worlds positively. Anyway, for more about the philosophy of sourcing locally, and especially the ways that our globalized world has made this virtually impossible, see this article about the 100-Mile Suit project. In this project, Kelly Cobb, a designer and expert on sustainability in fashion, set out to create a men’s suit using only materials and labor within 100 miles of her location. It’s a fascinating project that took more than 500 hours and 20+ people. At minimum wage ($7.25), which is way below what skilled artisans deserve, the labor alone would have made the suit cost $3,625! 

Here’s Kelly next to the rack with the pieces of the suit. I learned out her great work through a book that came out recently, Craft, by Glenn Adamson. I highly recommend it if you are interested in how crafts have been part of American history. You’ll likely be surprised.

So, for me, making my own clothes makes me more cognizant of the actual costs of clothing and far less likely to buy something mass produced. It won’t save the world, but it feels good to opt-out where I can.

Reason #2: It’s Hard Being a Woman and the Fashion Industry Does Us No Favors

Every woman everywhere knows that buying clothes can be incredibly demoralizing. No matter what size, weight, or shape you are, you will inevitably try on things that make you feel unattractive. Even if you eventually successfully find a few things that you like, the process can make even the most secure people feel like there is something wrong with their body.

That’s the crux of the problem: when clothes don’t fit, we immediately blame ourselves instead of looking to the industry that put us in this situation. Radiolab did a show called Butt Stuff, which included an interview with Heather Radke, author of Butts: A Backstory. There are so many gems in this show and book, but one that has really stuck with me is that when the garment industry first started mass production, they had detailed data on men’s bodies, which they used to develop patterns and fitting standards. But they did not have the same kinds of data for women’s bodies, so they did a small, racially and class-biased study and then just assumed, “hey, this’ll work for all women, right?” From these very limited data we get things like the expectation that the average women has a Size B bra cup and has predictable proportions between the bust line, waist, and hip. Here’s a picture of the statue they developed of the “average woman.” Another reason to be critical of these standards: Radke documents how this project of standardizing was linked to eugenics efforts at the time. Scary.

So, here we are, in 2023, still using problematic and inadequate standards for building clothing for women, and we’re surprised that nothing fits. When I make my own clothes, I have abundant opportunities to make them fit perfectly. Pattern designers have long added directions on how to adjust sizing. Those directions have gotten better over time and are especially good for some of the independent pattern makers, like Made for Mermaids, Ellie and Mac, and Peek-a-Boo (just to name a few — there are so many good designers making it independently today). There are thousands of blogs, articles, and videos online that go into more detail about how to fix all sorts of fit issues. 

That said, it’s taken me a long time to learn how to diagnose fit issues and then make the adjustments. It’s not a beginner skill set, that’s for sure. In future blogs, I’ll document some of the things I’ve learned and how they make my me-made clothing better. For now though, the important point is that I have control over the dimensions of the clothes I make. If there is a fit problem, it is a problem I can fix or at least do better next time. The problem is in the garment — not in the size or shape of my body.